The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 157
The corpses were in underwear, in the van there were some towels
and pieces of soap […].”
Later the witness states that he had to remove “towels and pieces of
soap” from the van after the gassing in order to reuse them. This procedure
is said to have been meant to fool the victims into believing that
they were going to take a shower. People struggling for their lives
would have made a mess of both towels and soap, though, so such a
procedure sounds far-fetched. 84
“The following day I volunteered to work in the woods.
While I was leaving, I saw a large van with its back end up
against the palace. The door was open. A footbridge made it easier
to get into the vehicle. What drew my attention was a wooden grate
on the van floor, just like those in a bathhouse. […]
At about 8am the first car from Chemno arrived. When the van’s
door was opened, dark smoke with a white tint belched out from the
inside. We were not allowed to approach the van at that moment and
could not even look in the direction of the open door.”
How did he manage to see the smoke then? Interestingly, lethal gasoline
engines do not produce dense smoke, and smoking Diesel engines
are hardly lethal, most certainly not for those opening the door.
“I noticed that the Germans, having opened the door, ran away
from the vehicle. I cannot tell whether the gas coming out from the
inside was an exhaust gas or some other gases. We usually had to
wait for so long that I did not smell the gas. Gas masks were not
used.
After three or four minutes had passed three Jews went into the
van.”
Quite a theatric scene, but completely made up. No matter what engine
these vans had, there was no reason at all to run away. Apart, if the
Germans thought they had to run away from the vehicle, why were they
near it in the first place, and if they ran, why didn’t the Jews run with
them and kept running? After all, running Germans are pretty bad
guards…
“The corpses generally did not look bad. I did not notice anyone
with their tongue sticking out of their mouths or with any unnatural
bruises.”
84 In his testimony before a Polish judge, former Chemno inmate Bruno Israel also claimed
that the victims led into a gas van in Chemno were given soap, unless they had their
own. Towels, they were told, would be issued at the bath (Bednarz 1946c, p. 70).